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A financial declaration form is usually required in domestic relations actions

Domestic relations actions often involve child support, alimony, property distribution, and debt division. If the respondent files an answer, each party must disclose to the other evidence of the party’s income, assets, debts and expenses, using a fully completed court-approved financial declaration form and attachments. Utah Rule of Civil Procedure 26.1.
The domestic relations actions that require a financial declaration form are:

divorce;

temporary separation;

separate maintenance;

parentage;

child custody;

child support, and

modification of a domestic relations order.

If the respondent does not file an answer, the parties do not need to disclose to each other the financial declaration form and attachments. But the parties may still need to file the form with the court so the court can enter orders affecting child support, alimony, division or property and debts.

Completing a financial declaration form

Each party must complete the approved financial declaration form and attach the following:

Copies of statements that are reasonably available to the party verifying the items and amounts listed on the form;

Copies for the two tax years before the petition was filed, complete federal and state income tax returns, including Form W-2 and supporting tax schedules and attachments, filed by or on behalf of the party or by or on behalf of any entity in which the party has a majority or controlling interest, including, but not limited to, Form 1099 and Form K-1;

Pay stubs and other evidence of all earned and un-earned income for the 12 months before the petition was filed;

All loan applications and financial statements prepared by or used by the party within the 12 months before the petition was filed;

Documents verifying the value of all real estate in which the party has an interest, including, but not limited to, the most recent appraisal, tax valuation and refinance documents;

All statements for the 3 months before the petition was filed for all financial accounts, including, but not limited to, checking, savings, money market funds, certificates of deposit, brokerage, investment, retirement, regardless of whether the account has been closed including those held in that party’s name, jointly with another person or entity, or as a trustee or guardian, or in someone else’s name on that party’s behalf.

If any of these documents are not reasonably available or are in the other party’s possession, the party completing the financial declaration form must estimate the amounts entered and explain the basis for the estimate and why the documents are not available.

Time for disclosure

The petitioner must serve the financial declaration and attachments on the respondent within 14 days after the respondent serves their first answer to the petition. The respondent must serve the financial declaration and attachments on the petitioner within 28 days after the petitioner’s first disclosure or 28 days after that respondent’s appearance in the action, whichever is later. The parties are required to serve amendments to the financial declaration if there is new information or if there are changes to the information. Service is governed by URCP 5.

Each party must file a certificate of service with the court stating that he or she has provided the financial declaration and attachments to the other party.

The certificate of service is filed with the court, but normally the parties will not file the financial declaration and attachments with the court.

Do not file the financial declaration with the court until there is a hearing at which the judge or commissioner must decide a financial question related to spouse support, child support, equitable allocation of property and debts or responsibility for attorney fees and court costs. The most common hearings that will require the parties to file the financial declaration are:

hearing on motion for a temporary order;

pretrial and trial hearing on petition for temporary separation

pretrial and trial hearing on petition for divorce;

pretrial and trial hearing on petition to modify custody order;

pretrial and trial hearing on petition to modify support order; and

other hearings when requested by the court.

If you need to file a financial declaration with the court, file only the financial declaration form itself and attach to it verification of all earned and un-earned income for the 12 months before the petition was filed, such as your most recent pay stub showing year-to-date wages and your most recent federal tax form 1040, 1040A or 1040EZ. Do not file the other attachments described in URCP 26.1 unless the court directs you to do so.

If the court is going to order child support, the parties will have to provide to the court the child support worksheet and other financial information required by Utah Code Section 78B-12-201. The child support worksheet and other information required by the statute, although similar, are independent of the required disclosure of the financial declaration form. For more information and forms, see our webpage on Child Support.

Notice of URCP 26.1 requirements

Failure to disclose or to comply with financial declaration requirements

Failure to fully disclose all assets and income in the financial declaration form and attachments may subject the non-disclosing party to sanctions under URCP 37. Sanctions may include an award of non-disclosed assets to the other party, attorney’s fees or other sanctions that the court finds appropriate.

Failure of a party to comply with URCP 26.1 does not keep the other party from obtaining a default judgment, proceeding with the case, or seeking other relief from the court.